Today we walked down to the end of the Royal Mile to see the Palace of Holyroodhouse, which is the official residence of the Royal Family (remember, they don’t like to stay in the castle’s Royal Palace), and now I know why. This palace is gorgeous and huge with beautiful gardens and views (Arthur’s Seat, an eroded extinct volcano, is to the south of the palace).
Outside the front entrance:
One of the side gates. See Arthur’s Seat?
Here is the inside courtyard after going through the front gate:
We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the palace, but I snuck a few. It’s amazing to see a place that is still actually being used for real royal functions and living. There is a huge dining room with silver candlesticks and beautiful paintings and tapestries.
Most rooms had huge tapestries on the walls to add color to them. In one room, Queen Elizabeth from London actually came to stay and influenced much of the tapestries and furniture in the room to make it more colorful and warm. Apparently, Scotland was too drab for her and she wanted to spruce it up.
This is a waiting room of some sort. I think people sat here to meet with the King or Queen.
This is some kind of meeting room where people came to meet with the King or Queen. See the tapestry behind the chairs.
This is the King’s bed chamber. We didn’t think the bed was very big at all, but the audio guide told us that often times the king wouldn’t even sleep here and he would sleep in a smaller bed! I guess back in those days, they didn’t have the huge beds we have today.
This is the Queen’s bed chamber. It was restored a few years ago and was permanently placed behind glass in low light to keep it from deteriorating, so it’s not a great picture.
Mary, Queen of Scots’ Bed Chamber was up the stairs in a tower. I never knew the story of her until today. She became queen when she was 6 days old (because King James V died) and was taken to France for safety until she was about 17 years old. In France, she married, but he was killed soon afterwards. Then she married Lord Darnley (her first cousin – EWWW!), which ended in his murder as well, but not until after he had Mary’s Italian secretary (David Rizzio) killed because he felt threatened by him. While married to Darnley, Mary had a son (James), who was crowned king when he was an infant, since Mary proved that she couldn’t handle being queen. Then Mary married her third husband, James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, and this created even more controversy. Mary was eventually put on trial for treason and executed at the age of 44. Craziness.
This is Holyrood Abbey, which was a church built by King David I of Scotland in 1128. The palace was actually built up after the abbey was constructed. It fell under many attacks, so it no longer has a roof and is therefore no longer used.
Behind the palace are the Royal Gardens, which are absolutely gorgeous. You can see Arthur’s Seat from these pictures. It is absolutely huge. We hiked up it after seeing the palace (just kidding, you know us better than that; we’re too lazy :)), but people do hike up it and maybe we will on a different day if we are feeling adventurous.
After the palace, we walked back towards our hotel and went to a bar to play pool. I wish I had taken a picture of the pool table. It’s only about 6 feet by 3 feet (and we are used to 8 foot tables). Because of its small size, the pockets, and therefore the balls, are smaller. Also, the balls are just red and yellow and don’t have numbers on them.
That night, we went to a nice dinner and then went on the Terror Tour, where they take you to underground vaults and tell you about ghosts and stuff. We weren’t scared, but it was interesting. In one of the vaults was a circle of stones that supposedly had bad vibes in it, and whoever steps into the circle feels like they constantly have someone following them. Only one person from the group stepped into the circle. I don’t completely believe in the paranormal, but I figure if it is for real, why piss them off?
The tour ended at the "most haunted bar" in Edinburgh. I don't know about that, but we did get a free drink and got to listen to live music. The guy was sitting on a box with wooden sides and a kind of metal front and was playing it with his hands. The girl was playing guitar. They both sang, but she sang the most. They were really good. We're glad we got to listen to live music, but we headed out early because I was tired. But, of course, we had to get pizza on the way home :) We've eaten a lot of pizza here, but it's SO good!
No comments:
Post a Comment